Artorias closed the door behind him and leaned his back against it for a moment, as if the thick oak could keep his thoughts from spilling out. The room was silent, too silent. No rattling chains, no screaming at a distance, no guards barking orders. Space. Just he himself.
He leaned off the door and started to pace.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
His boots sank, with each step, into the carpet-soft, a surface unlike the stone floors he was accustomed to. That alone would have unsettled him. Comfort felt wrong. Unearned.
His mind ran over everything: the escape, the fire, the chaos, and now most recently, the conversation with Petasius. The man's calm voice, his certainty, even his way of speaking about revenge, the word spoken as if a tool, not a poison, something that could be whetted and used cleanly.
But none of that gnawed at him as much as the memories of the day before.
The screams.
He could almost see it: the men in the kitchen, beating on the doors as smoke choked the room. The barracks, in which panic and fear turned into madness when flames licked up the walls faster than a mind could think. The stables, he gulped hard on that one. The old man. The horses.
His steps slowed.
I've probably killed dozens of people, he thought. Dozens… just to get away.
It didn't crush him like he thought it might. It just sat there, heavy and uncomfortable, like a heavy stone over his chest.
I watched the lives leave their bodies to fly away because I wanted to be free of that hell. "I have caused death and suffering for my own freedom. Took lives because I wanted to live."
Normally, he would have told himself they deserved it. Guards. Jailers. Men who laughed while others broke. That would have been easy.
But Gustaw's face refused to leave his mind.
Gustaw, looking away when others beat him. Gustaw, helping once, just once, without knowing who he was or what he'd been accused of.
"He probably died in the fire," Artorias told himself, his jaw tight.
He stopped pacing.
"I thought all the guards were evil. I needed to believe that. But Gustaw wasn't one of the men who tormented me. He wasn't there when they dragged my parents away."
His breath grew shallow.
"So it is as if I killed an innocent man?"
The question echoed, unanswered.
It wasn't just him, his mind raced on. What if there were others? Men, sometimes cruel, at other times indifferent, but not monsters. What if I burned them anyway?
His fingers dug into his palms.
"I cannot know. I will never know." He murmured.
What do I do with that? he thought in desperation. What am I supposed to feel?
He resumed pacing, faster now, as if movement could outrun guilt.
Then he stopped again, this time more abruptly.
"But what if cruelty is contagious?"
It was an unbidden thought, a very ugly thought.
"What if that place corrupts everyone in the long run? Would Gustaw have stood by if he were there that day? Would he have laughed? Would he have done nothing while my mother screamed? Would he join the others and be a part of that cruelty?"
His lips curled.
"It's childish to say all humans are evil," he murmured bitter, "But where's the proof they aren't?"
Images of his parents flashed before him, gentle, obstinate, unbending.
They were good, he thought. And they're dead.
Understanding settled into him.
"The good lose, they always do. They sacrifice, they endure, they believe… and they're crushed for it. The ones that rise are the ones that exploit that kindness, that hide their cruelty behind laws, uniforms, and holy words."
His pacing slowed again, this time with purpose.
"And when the good finally resist?" he added mentally. "When they do not obey even once?"
"They're erased."
Just like his parents.
"So should I feel guilty?" he asked himself.
His response was quicker than previously.
"No... Those guards were my enemies. They upheld that system. Maybe they weren't born monsters. Maybe someone broke them first. But they chose to stay. They chose comfort over resistance."
His expression hardened.
"Do I pity weak-willed men who could not resist the temptation? No. I feel nothing at their deaths.
He let it go, slowly exhaling.
"Morality… thinking about it too deeply is pointless. I'm not a philosopher. Not wise. I was prey, and I fought back."
His gaze fell to the window, to the bright city beyond.
"And Gustaw?" he breathed inside his mind. "He was still part of it. Even if he helped me. Even if he was kind."
His chest tightened, but this time he did not retreat from the idea.
"Each is guilty of its sins who belongs to that rotten system."
His hands clenched into fists.
"That's my answer. That's my justification."
A definitive certainty settled in, colder but more passionate than rage.
He thought, I won't just run. I won't just survive.
"I will destroy everything built on lies, cruelty, and false order." His reflection stared back from the polished surface of the wardrobe. "That," he decided, "is my revenge"